This video has amassed more than 10 Million hits. You've probably seen it. Now hear Shane Speal's interesting backstory to the entire project.
Shane Speal says:
In early 2012, I received a panicked call from a advertising company in England. They were looking for cigar box guitars and they needed them NOW!
The caller wouldn't devulge too much information, but said that a popular Youtube band was working on a song and video that would be connected to a Canadian telecom business. It was a Tuesday afternoon. They needed the guitars shipped to Quebec, Canada by the end of the week.
At the time, I only had one cigar box guitar built that was for sale. I also offered up a beautiful cigar box ukulele made by a retired builder in North Carolina. (I didn't want to give it up, so I offered a high price. They didn't even blink and bought it immediately.)
I also told them to contact my friend, Lenny Robert from Daddy Mojo Guitars in Montreal, since he was nearby. They did and Lenny collected a bunch of his own cigar box guitars and hand-delivered them.
Walk Off the Earth received their new batch of cigar box guitars on a Thursday, arranged the folk song "Little Boxes" on them, recorded it Friday and shot the video above on Saturday.
That's how talented they are.
THE MAKING OF LITTLE BOXES: Once they received my guitars in the mail, the ad agency called me up and offered to fly me to Quebec for the shoot. At the time, I was a stay-at-home-dad and couldn't leave Melissa and the kids. I had to turn them down.
Luckily, Lenny Robert was available and the cameras rolled:
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